Disremembering the II Republic
In an effort to show a contrasting political spin on the recuperation of Historical Memory in Spain, I wanted to offer an article from yesterday's edition of ABC newspaper regarding the new law. It doesn't take much to recognize the political spin of ABC, a conservative newspaper whose readers by and large vote for the Partido Popular, versus that of El País, which tends to run articles in favor of Spain's socialist goverment, the PSOE. If nothing else, an interesting note on journalism in Spain, starting with the contrast of headlines between the two newspapers:The Partido Popular accuses the Government of digging up the past as a political weapon
«It's surprising that President Zapatero declares himself inheritor of the II Republic, which failed, instead of González, Guerra and Carrillo», says the PP
ABC -- 28.04.06
MADRID. "If it's bad to disregard history, it's even worse to manipulate it or misinterpret it from interested political positions. The poorly named 'recuperation of historical memory' is nothing but the misuse of the past as a political weapon." With this argument, yesterday the PP refused to vote in favor of a proposition for a law to render homage to the victims of the Civil War and Francoism, and likewise for the initiators of the democratic transition, which came through with votes in favor from socialist party (PSOE), and minority parties, except for the ERC which abstained.
The PP was very hard with the socialists -to those who accused of proportioning historical revisionism as revindication- and, especially, with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. "It seems surprising -some even call it ridiculous- that Mr. Zapatero declares himself inheritor of the II Republic, which failed, instead of Felipe González, Alfonso Guerra, and Santiago Carrillo, which played a transcendent role in the constitutional pact," representative from the PP Manuel Atencia asserted before Congress.
The principal group of opposition believes that the II Republic is history "and so it should be treated." On this point, members of the PP believe that the initiative approved yesterday by Congress is contrary to the constitutional pact. "In the first place," said Atencia, "because it pretends to establish an official truth. Secondly, because it attempts to revise the political transition. And, lastly, because it undoes the unanimous accord that Congress approved on November 20th, 2002."
The Role of Alfonso Guerra
That day -with the absolute majority of the PP in session-, the Constitutional Commission drafted a text that emphasized that the Constitution of 1978 was named, by all parties, the "Constitution of Agreement", since it intended to bring closure to a tragic past of civil confrontation between Spaniards. Atencia brought it upon himself to remember that Alfonso Guerra played a relevant role so that this accord could reach a unanimous agreement.
Meanwhile, the socialists and their allies attempted to defend themselves before the criticisms of the PP with the argument that the initiative does not pretend to "reopen wounds." The spokesperson for the PSOE, Ramón Jáuregui, called it "erroneous" the way in which members of the PP look at historical memory that, according to him, "should illuminate our present and the political debate without disguise of a thin veil."
In discussion the leader of the Izquierda Unida (IU), Gaspar Llamazares, lamented that the "Spanish Rightwing" feels so "offended" for the recuperation of "memory of the Republic and the commemoration of the anti-Francoist democrats."
posted by Jon at 12:56 PM
12 Comments:
I went back and read one of Orwell's essays on the Spanish civil war. It wasn't very instructive.
If you want to read it.
I'm going to indulge my conservative tendencies for a moment. I really don't get what the point of this remembering is. What, exactly, is being remembered? I can understand why conservatives would be pissed if it essentially amounts to "we're the good guys, and y'all were grade A assholes." Is this really such a wise thing to do in a country whose constitutional stability is almost entirely dependent upon absorbing the previous fascist supporters? Suckas need to look to South Africa for how to work this shit out right.
For another perspective, try translating the El Pais article into jive.
http://sites.gizoogle.com/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdespabilarse.blogspot.com%2F2006%2F04%2Fdisremembering-ii-republic.html
thank you, mike and nicholas, for your resourceful sites on the matter. both orwell and the tranzilatin' page proved helpful in what i am about to say.
nicholas, a few questions come to mind instead of a response: what if, to draw an example, the war crimes of the Argentinian government were never recognized officially by the current democratic state-- in effect, as if to say the 'disappeared' should be regarded just that, as part of the past, disappeared and no longer to return? what if your uncle, let's say, were assassinated by fascist sympathizers simply for having been in a trade union that affiliated with the "opposition" (and i am taking this very real case from a friend, not from a hypothetical situation)? and if you knew of the alleged ground of the mass grave where he were buried, but the current state were to turn away from these murders, refusing to recognize them even though they did exist?
i'm saying that 'official discourse' from the State on its fascist past is not enough, nor does it constitute justice for these wrongs. so a return to a very late process of Historical Memory is not only necessary, it is not enough.
and yes, the right-wing politicians today (the same ones crying "it's histroy! forget it!") would never want to admit that many of them have been assured political careers because they come from a patrolineage that traces directly to the dictatorship.
lastly, the transition to democracy played out as a pact of 'forgetting' to forge a constitutional democracy on the heels of a waning fascist dictatorship. it's been highly celebrated as a success, this is true; but what is being rewritten now is the major mistake made twenty years ago: that forgetting the past can't be done through a political pact, because it continues to resonate through the social as unjust, incomplete, and repressed.
Wow, Jon, amazing defense! If you were batting for my team, I'd be all over you right now. Rar.
So Nicholas, what did the five fingers say to the face?
I think you two should have a dance-off to determine who has the better argument.
I'll bite, if only because I enjoy being the asshole and because Jon knows I'm mostly playing Devil's Advocate.
The rhetorical questioning is a tactic I don't particularly like because it suggests rather than proposes. Of course, all of this coming out of my ignorance of Spanish history (I admit it), so in order to better tackle the general discussion, I'll go with what I know better.
Starting about this time last year (and this drama plays itself out every year) official Chinese Communist Party apparati once again came out and critcized that Japanese educational system for turning a blind eye to its sordid history in East Asia. Old Japanese men in Armani suits retorted with the usual "what about the you guys keeping tight lipped about the Cultural Revolution?" Normally, this is all the further it goes.
However, last summer, there were wide spread protests including riots in Shanghai over this "issue." Japanese businesses were looted and almost completely destroyed. The "protestors" were mostly university students bussed in at the CCP's expense and once it all had been captured on tape for the foreign press were quickly bussed back. You don't have to believe me; Liansu, who was in China at the time, can attest to it.
Without getting into too much detail, Chinese cadre have been getting a little hot over their dependency on foreign capital to fuel their overheating economic growth. Koizumi had been considering making capital investment in China conditional at that point in time. Put two and two together.
Spain is not Argentina, Jon, and Japan is not Spain. What I want is for people to see past the very real, very powerful emotional argument to an ulterior purpose lurking in the wings, namely politicians using people's justifiable idignation as a bludgeon against their political enemies.
I mentioned South Africa, because there the TRC managed to take what was a much more complex situation in which the violence was not only white on black, but black on white, black on black, and even white on white and come to some kind of reconciliation. Of course, I agree with Tutu that first must come truth.
I'm assuming Jon has yet to throw in the towel.
And I'd like to think our dancing is more synergistic than combative.
Nicholas does have a point here. It's pretty naive, politically speaking, *just* to applaud the leftists for wanting to "legitimate" the II Republic, and to make a pouty-face at the rightists for complaining about it. When symbolic gestures of this magnitude are going to be written into law, one has to ask the classic political question: cui bono? Whose ends is this serving? What kind of political situations is the left imagining in their future where reference to an act like this is going to strengthen their agenda? Certainly the right is not innocent of such manipulations - in fact, they're far more tarred with the fascist past than the left will ever be - but their questions stand on their own merits.
thank you, collin, for your wise suggestion. i in fact do fancy myself a krumpin' dance-off participant of sorts and i wish, by extension, that academic debates could be performed in an arena of screaming whooping fans. the moderator of the debates would be an ex rapper gansta dressed in a clown suit.
if none of this makes sense, i refer you to David Lachapelle's documentary Krumpin', one of collin's all time favorite movies. but on to the matter at hand:
nicholas, your first comment was helpful, as it gave me an idea for the starting point to a prologue, a begining i knew was there but was still looking for. so of course i appreciate your questioning.
when you take up issue with my rhetorical questioning, however, i want to clarify that i have proposed these questions not for the sake of making a suggestive, emotive argument for history's "losers", but merely because it's my krumpin' style. when i mention personal cases of the murdered, it is not to pull at anyone's heartstrings, but to 'put a face' on the dead that are at issue, which both in our debate and in the political discussions in Congress have taken the form of an abstract collective 'loss'. and after all, i choose to be rhetorical with my questions, as the matters of history at hand lend themselves to rhetorical lines of questioning, beginning perhaps with "what if?"-- what if we might remember the traumas of the past (the disappeared, oppressed and vanquished) so as to 'move on' with an awareness of this past?
although the issue of remembering the past is inherently political (thank you mikey and nicholas for pointing this out when i did not), and the work of questioning *how* the past is remembered is a necessary matter to be dealt with, i believe the primary issue here lies in the mere ability to *face* the past, a task which has not been at hand in official discourse since 25 years of secured democracy in Spain.
i strongly disagree that there is a "truth" to this past, as you say, nicholas. any sort of remembering the past will always be a construction embedded in the circumstances of the present, circumstances which may turn out to be politically motivated as you caution against. however, this is the point where the conservatives in the PP have it wrong: it is impossible to "return to the past" or remember it as if there were an original "truth" floating around in historical archives to be found and resuscitated as the 'official history'. what should be promoted undoubtedly is this impossibility, as much as the necessity of 're-membering' the past (to figure it, make it present) as a representation.
admit it's a representation, and we not only move away from the lamentation of a fearful 'return' to an era no one hopes to revisit, it would also free the debate of 'ownership' of one's history, which is impossible. (propriety and truth in history being two damming legacies that i wish we could shake ourselves of, then maybe we might understand that the war crimes of Argentina *are* as pertinent as those of Japan or Spain.) thereby, a sort of mourning might be set into motion that could collectively bring the wrongs of the past to light, not as way to disguise debates with the unproductive argument 'who has done my people wrong' in history, but as a way of 'presenting' the past, always as a representation, never as it was. call it a necessary seeping into consciousness that Spain, at least, has not yet experienced, even as memories of Francoist oppression continue to unsettle the current state of affairs.
Actually, the Lachapelle doc is called Rize, but the particular style of dance is krump. Visit http://www.rizemovie.com/rize.php
for more info. Apparently krumping is also an amazing ab workout. Visit the link to find out more. And yes, since you were wondering, I do in fact have an 8-pack.
When you factor in that I largely agree with Jon, it makes my argument somewhat facile and weak.
My only remaining quibble, because all I really wanted was a clarification, which I got: truth. I was paraphrasing if not quoting Tutu specifically. Maybe because I'm still a Christian at heart, lol, I believe in the redemptive power of repentence. So what I meant by truth is admitting to yourself for the benefit of all your own culpability, which, I may be wrong, seems to be what you're saying.
Now THAT is a lengthy and controversial blog entry just waiting to happen: Nicholas' explicatio of his clandestine Catholicism, which fascinates me, at least, and seems to deserve much more comment than "lol".
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